The Messenger of Allah (saas) said: The Qaim (the Mahdi who will appear) is one of my children. His name is my name; his patronymic is my patronymic; his nature is my nature and his behavior will be my behavior. He will call people to my religion and invite them to the Book of Allah. Those who obey him will be obeying me. Those who rebel against him will be rebelling against me. Those who deny him during his absence will be denying me. In other words, our Prophet (saas) says that those who deny him before he comes, are denying me. Those who say “The Mahdi (pbuh) will not come, there is no Mahdi (pbuh)” have denied me, he says. Those who proclaim him to be false have proclaimed me to be false. “Those who confirm him have confirmed me. I shall complain in the Presence of Allah of those who proclaim him to be false, who deny my words about him and who cause the Community to go astray” says our Prophet (saas). The oppressors will soon see the results of his works. A book of hadiths written 800 years ago, the Bihar al- Anwar (Vol. 51 p. 73)

“Our Prophet (saas) said: "He who denies the Mahdi, one of my children, has denied me." The same thing appears in Sunni works. In other words, hadiths along thee lines.

“In the time of Muhammad ibn Hanafi,” my forebear, the son of Hazrat Ali (pbuh), “some Muslims referred to Muhammad ibn Hanefi as the Mahdi.” He really did resemble the Mahdi. This is most significant. Since my forebear resembled the Mahdi in appearance, the Companions imagined him to be the Mahdi at that time. They constantly addressed him as the Mahdi, and he would constantly tell them not to call him the Mahdi. “Through him, they promised a bright future for Islam. When he died,’ he did not die, but is living on Mount Radwa and will one day reappear," they said.

(In response to a report that “The overthrown Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarek has been sentenced to life imprisonment.”)

Let him read the Book, the Qur’an, the verses, and let him pray. His cruelty was very great. Let him repent to Allah.

Allah does not want us to love this world, I see that. Almighty Allah has taken all precautions so we should not love this world. He wants us to desire the hereafter. I have thought about that, too. People have a tendency to leave their desiring the hereafter until a much later date. But one can die within a few seconds. One can die at any moment. One suddenly leaves this world. It is irrational to regard the hereafter as of secondary importance when one is living so cheek by jowl with death, when this world is so very unimportant. In other words they should think deeply and sincerely, even if others do not, and concentrate their will and attention and see this evident reality. Other people may not be able to see. Because that is how Allah shows it to us inside our brains, as part of the test. Perhaps most of them are dead. I mean, if Allah were to say, “I showed you 2000–3000 dead people, yet you still went along with the dead. Why did you not follow the living? Why did you not abide by the Qur’an?” then what answer could we give? If He were to say He created them all as shadow entities. That would put one in a very strange position, wouldn’t it?

Attachment to this world is very powerful in one’s youth. And very powerful in middle age. It is powerful in old age. I see no intermediate age. I look and see that it never even crosses young people’s minds. I look at young girls and boys and they think they will live for ages and ages. They talk as if they were going to live for thousands of years. At the age of 40-50 they still say, hold on, we are not old yet. And for some reason, they still do not think any different at 70-80. They still think they have plenty of time. Even if they think they have another 10-20 years left, that still seems like a very long time and they are unwilling to reflect. They put it off and say they will do their thinking nearer the time.

Allah has created human beings to be terribly weak, in order to draw them close to Him. He has also created a great many marvels. Plugs and sockets are sources of miracles. A socket is a tiny hole, the size of a lentil. It is the part the positive electricity flow through that counts. It makes that hair-drier work. But that is not the case. It is Allah Who makes it work. It is Allah Who wets the hair and Allah Who dries it. But He uses that space the size of a lentil as His instrument. And people do not see the bottom of it, so it is not clear what is going on. I mean, we think it exists, as that is how Allah shows it to us, and we imagine the wires go through it.

In fact, they are all phenomena like the marvels of paradise. It is very much the same in paradise, except that there are no natural causes. For example, plates and things. You open the door of a cupboard, but as a blessing of paradise the system is the same. You open a world and the plates are all there stacked up. Allah creates the plate at that moment, but one has the impression it has already been there waiting for a long time. Yet Allah tells us in one verse that He is constantly creating.

Everyone would live at ease if the whole world were devout and religious. But people are afraid that there will be bigots around. For example, the government in Israel could be more religious. But they are afraid that bigotry will spread. There is a whole mass of people attracted to bigotry in Israel. There is still a danger of bigotry among them, but very little danger of bigotry remains among Christians. They merely preserve the idea of being Christian. But there is still a danger among evangelical Protestants. They still have a tendency toward bloodshed.

Salvation for the world lies in a modern religious devotion, in the Qur’anic sense, in the sense of the times of the Companions. People would live at ease then. Otherwise Allah will not permit any ease. Life is difficult. Allah has made life very difficult, but He has also bestowed many blessings. I look at the view from my house and it is lovely, that view of the sea. Allah has given us cars. But life is transitory. Look at the difficulties people face. They have to get up in the morning and have a shower. They have to eat. What does 8 hours sleep a night mean? It happens because people do not think. A person has to spend 8 hours in a dead state every single day. Like being in the grave. They go to their rooms and die, they accept. Allah says He takes our souls every time we go to sleep. And He restores it if He so wishes. Sometimes, He says, He will not return it. That often happens. There is weakness everywhere. But how do people withstand weakness?

As if death is chasing after people and they are running away. For example, there are scorpions in many parts of Istanbul. A scorpion sting will normally kill one. Sometime, the heart stops for no reason. Yet people fight and swear at one another and shout like crazies despite all these things around them. There is a huge thirst for this world. People will hurt one another for a very small amount of money. Our dear women will sacrifice themselves for marriage. People kill women and then kill themselves with no qualms. So many women are murdered. The sole reason is that the woman has a sexual organ, nothing else. If the woman’s sexual organ ceases to function, the man will kill neither her nor himself. But Allah has created that sexual organ to be weak. It is the source of all kinds of weakness. But people kill them because of sexuality. No other reason. This deficiency in education, in reason, this weakness of intellect, this weakness of judgment has settled all over the world. Darwinism has corrupted people from another direction. The world is currently paralyzed. For example, I look at the compositions of Turkish classical music. It is impossible for any more like that to be written. That fervor of faith, that spirit in them has gone. There are no sculptors to make fine statues any more.

Although some people refuse to believe (in human beings coming into existence by chance) in order not to lose their circle of friends, they pretend to that they do. They cannot abandon their friends. They understand, but they cannot renounce them. They appear to be one of them, but one can tell they are not like the others when they speak honestly. Allah bestows the world on all mankind. Almighty Allah tells us to share it. This is quite clear in the statements on the system of the Mahdi. “He will distribute goods equally,” we are told. “Everyone will be rich,” we are told. “There will be such wealth that nobody will wish to receive any more,” He says. “Wars will cease and peace and tranquility will rule the world,” He says. Almighty Allah revealed this 3000 years ago in the Torah. Our Prophet (saas) also described the Mahdi 1400 years ago in the Qur’an. In the Torah he is referred to as “Shiloh, Moshe, the King Messiah or the Son of David.” These are all names of Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh).